CRUSTACEAN NATION
What follows is to be understood as a dialogue between a protostome and a deuterostome.
P. Yes, yes, I've heard of Walter Reuther and Joe Hill and Jimmy Hoffa. My dad was in a union, and I never heard him complain. You know, I guess it's OK in the private sector, but public-sector unions are an entirely different matter because they negotiate with government monopolies which can pass $100,000 teachers' salaries and $200,000 a year pensions for firemen on to us poor taxpayers! And then they reward the school boards and fire commissioners by bringing out the troops in November. Teachers (except the lazy and liberal ones) and firefighters we love, but to let them have collective bargaining? That's just a step away from communism, where the government owns and runs everything, and "the workers" run the government. In reality, of course, "the workers" are a little gang of bosses, some driven by idealism or utopianism, and some by sheer greed or power-lust.
Susan Sarandon, meet Joseph Stalin.
D. You are ignoring the fact that private-sector unions have been all but wiped out over the last 30 years. Unions need a base from which to claw their way back into serious private-sector organizing. What would you suggest if not the "government unions," with all their faults? But it seems most of you folks who purport to be down with unions don't really want that, you want the public-sector unions not just weakened but gutted and filleted. And speaking of seafood, you may have heard the claim (true or not I can't say) that if one lobster tries to climb out of a pot of boiling water, others in the pot will claw him back down in, so there’s no chance that he might help pull them out. Of course, lobsters are anything but altruistic, and I’d like to think anti-union Americans are smarter than crustaceans, but I’m beginning to have my doubts.
Larry T., meet drawn butter.
P. Yes, yes, I've heard of Walter Reuther and Joe Hill and Jimmy Hoffa. My dad was in a union, and I never heard him complain. You know, I guess it's OK in the private sector, but public-sector unions are an entirely different matter because they negotiate with government monopolies which can pass $100,000 teachers' salaries and $200,000 a year pensions for firemen on to us poor taxpayers! And then they reward the school boards and fire commissioners by bringing out the troops in November. Teachers (except the lazy and liberal ones) and firefighters we love, but to let them have collective bargaining? That's just a step away from communism, where the government owns and runs everything, and "the workers" run the government. In reality, of course, "the workers" are a little gang of bosses, some driven by idealism or utopianism, and some by sheer greed or power-lust.
Susan Sarandon, meet Joseph Stalin.
D. You are ignoring the fact that private-sector unions have been all but wiped out over the last 30 years. Unions need a base from which to claw their way back into serious private-sector organizing. What would you suggest if not the "government unions," with all their faults? But it seems most of you folks who purport to be down with unions don't really want that, you want the public-sector unions not just weakened but gutted and filleted. And speaking of seafood, you may have heard the claim (true or not I can't say) that if one lobster tries to climb out of a pot of boiling water, others in the pot will claw him back down in, so there’s no chance that he might help pull them out. Of course, lobsters are anything but altruistic, and I’d like to think anti-union Americans are smarter than crustaceans, but I’m beginning to have my doubts.
Larry T., meet drawn butter.
posted by Lloyd Drako at
12:28 PM
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